Communism and Capitalism: True Opposites?

[skepticalbip]

... snip ...

Define communism, or socialism, or modern capitalism in terms of

Philosophy
Morality
Relative freedoms of the individual and actions
Economic system
Forms of govt
Social justice and equality
Human nature

... snip ...

Only economic system applies to socialism, communism, and/or capitalism. They are only economic systems. Any of those economic systems can have a wide variety of moral codes, governments, philosophies, etc.

If Denmark is not representative of a socialist system then detail what a socialist system would look like in reality, not dictionary definitions

Denmark has a capitalistic economic system with a generous social safety net. Denmark's government system is a parliamentary representative democracy.

Venezuela has a federal presidential republic government with a socialist economic system. Twenty or so years ago Venezuela was a federal presidential republic government with a capitalist economic system.

 

[J842P]

... snip ...

Define communism, or socialism, or modern capitalism in terms of

Philosophy
Morality
Relative freedoms of the individual and actions
Economic system
Forms of govt
Social justice and equality
Human nature

... snip ...

Only economic system applies to socialism, communism, and/or capitalism. They are only economic systems. Any of those economic systems can have a wide variety of moral codes, governments, philosophies, etc.

If Denmark is not representative of a socialist system then detail what a socialist system would look like in reality, not dictionary definitions

Denmark has a capitalistic economic system with a generous social safety net. Denmark's government system is a parliamentary representative democracy.

Venezuela has a federal presidential republic government with a socialist economic system. Twenty or so years ago Venezuela was a federal presidential republic government with a capitalist economic system.

How, precisely, is Venezuelan socialist? All the means of production are owned communally? At what percentage does it become "socialist" rather than "capitalist"?

I mean sure, it has been a rentier state for the past century.

 

[skepticalbip]

Only economic system applies to socialism, communism, and/or capitalism. They are only economic systems. Any of those economic systems can have a wide variety of moral codes, governments, philosophies, etc.


Denmark has a capitalistic economic system with a generous social safety net. Denmark's government system is a parliamentary representative democracy.

Venezuela has a federal presidential republic government with a socialist economic system. Twenty or so years ago Venezuela was a federal presidential republic government with a capitalist economic system.

How, precisely, is Venezuelan socialist? All the means of production are owned communally? At what percentage does it become "socialist" rather than "capitalist"?

I mean sure, it has been a rentier state for the past century.

You need to re-read Marx. Under a socialist economic system, the government owns and manages the 'means of production'. The oil industry was nationalized in the mid 1970s. Chavez nationalized the industrial capacity and the farming industry during his reign.

Communism is an economic system where the people communally share ownership of 'the means of production', not the government.

Capitalism is an economic system where individuals own and manage the 'means of production'.

 

[J842P]

Only economic system applies to socialism, communism, and/or capitalism. They are only economic systems. Any of those economic systems can have a wide variety of moral codes, governments, philosophies, etc.


Denmark has a capitalistic economic system with a generous social safety net. Denmark's government system is a parliamentary representative democracy.

Venezuela has a federal presidential republic government with a socialist economic system. Twenty or so years ago Venezuela was a federal presidential republic government with a capitalist economic system.

How, precisely, is Venezuelan socialist? All the means of production are owned communally? At what percentage does it become "socialist" rather than "capitalist"?

I mean sure, it has been a rentier state for the past century.

You need to re-read Marx. Under a socialist economic system, the government owns and manages the 'means of production'. The oil industry was nationalized in the mid 1970s. Chavez nationalized the industrial capacity and the farming industry during his reign.

Communism is an economic system where the people communally share 'the means of production'.

Marx didn't invent socialism, I was trying to simply repeat your definition. Fine, I accept your nitpick. What percentage of Venezuelan industry is owned by the government, and what percentage is necessary to be called socialist?

 

[steve_bank]

It is also social and political philosophy.

The American farmers crated a govt empowered to protect individual rights which includes the right to free enterprise and the right to keep your profits to do with as you like. Both a political and social philosophy.

The philosophical question is what is the role of govt/ Is it individual rights with no obligation to create a balance and social justice, or is it to provide social justice and support for all. For example some politicians proposing minimum income regardless if work or mot.Conservatives use the worse examples of socialism and communism to create a fear that any national support like health care will result in dictatorship. The progressives invoke capitalist tyrants like Henry Ford from the early 29th and late 19th centuries. Makes it impossible to reach a reasoned compromise.

The philosophy of our modern economy is make a lot of money any way you can and to hell with anyone else. Of course an exaggeration but it is the genral idea.

Socialism is about through govt we take care of everybody to some degree.

 

[PyramidHead]

Only economic system applies to socialism, communism, and/or capitalism. They are only economic systems. Any of those economic systems can have a wide variety of moral codes, governments, philosophies, etc.


Denmark has a capitalistic economic system with a generous social safety net. Denmark's government system is a parliamentary representative democracy.

Venezuela has a federal presidential republic government with a socialist economic system. Twenty or so years ago Venezuela was a federal presidential republic government with a capitalist economic system.

How, precisely, is Venezuelan socialist? All the means of production are owned communally? At what percentage does it become "socialist" rather than "capitalist"?

I mean sure, it has been a rentier state for the past century.

You need to re-read Marx. Under a socialist economic system, the government owns and manages the 'means of production'.

It's not that simplistic; you should start with Wikipedia

In Marxist theory, the socialist mode of production, also referred to as lower-stage of communism[1] or simply socialism as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the terms socialism and communism interchangeably, refers to a specific historical phase of economic development and its corresponding set of social relations that emerge from capitalism in the schema of historical materialism. The Marxist definition of socialism is an economic transition where the sole criterion for production is use-value and therefore the law of value no longer directs economic activity. Marxist production for use is coordinated through conscious economic planning while distribution of products is based on the principle of "to each according to his contribution". The social relations of socialism are characterized by the proletariat effectively controlling the means of production, either through cooperative enterprises or by public ownership or private artisanal tools and self-management so that social surplus goes to the working class and hence society as a whole.

[...]

In Marxist theory, the state is "the institution of organised violence which is used by the ruling class of a country to maintain the conditions of its rule. Thus, it is only in a society which is divided between hostile social classes that the state exists".[11] The state is seen as a mechanism that is dominated by the interests of the ruling class and utilized to subjugate other classes in order to protect and legitimize the existing economic system.

After a proletarian revolution, the state would initially become the instrument of the proletariat. Conquest of the state apparatus by the proletariat must take place to establish a socialist system. As socialism is built, the role and scope of the state changes as class distinctions based on ownership of the means of production gradually deteriorate due to the concentration of means of production in state hands. From the point where all means of production become state property, the nature and primary function of the state would change from one of political rule via coercion over men by the creation and enforcement of laws into a scientific administration of things and a direction of processes of production, meaning the state would become a coordinating economic entity rather than a mechanism of class or political control and would no longer be a state in the Marxian sense.

In other words, state ownership of the means of production is only an incidental ingredient of socialism; the main one is that a revolution has occurred that replaces the ownership class with the working class as the dominant force in society. Only when the state is comprised of workers does state ownership of property equate to socialism.

 

[PyramidHead]

It is also social and political philosophy.

The American farmers crated a govt empowered to protect individual rights which includes the right to free enterprise and the right to keep your profits to do with as you like. Both a political and social philosophy.

The philosophical question is what is the role of govt/ Is it individual rights with no obligation to create a balance and social justice, or is it to provide social justice and support for all. For example some politicians proposing minimum income regardless if work or mot.Conservatives use the worse examples of socialism and communism to create a fear that any national support like health care will result in dictatorship. The progressives invoke capitalist tyrants like Henry Ford from the early 29th and late 19th centuries. Makes it impossible to reach a reasoned compromise.

The philosophy of our modern economy is make a lot of money any way you can and to hell with anyone else. Of course an exaggeration but it is the genral idea.

Socialism is about through govt we take care of everybody to some degree.

That's a kind of paternalist social democracy, which differs from socialism as described by Marx and his later followers. The term "socialism" is meaningless without the backdrop of class struggle. Same goes for the terms "government" and "ownership" and "property" and all the rest. Over and over, every socialist since Marx has emphasized the importance of class interests and how they can make a specific policy (such as the government "taking care of people") either good or bad depending on which class is being served and which is doing the serving. Any discussion about communism/socialism that does not mention class is akin to a discussion of biology that doesn't mention natural selection. You can never get past the most superficial, glancing encounter with the actual content of what's being said if you're missing its central element.

 

[skepticalbip]

In other words, state ownership of the means of production is only an incidental ingredient of socialism; the main one is that a revolution has occurred that replaces the ownership class with the working class as the dominant force in society. Only when the state is comprised of workers does state ownership of property equate to socialism.

You are using the Trotskyite interpretation of Marx. Trotsky was so radical that even Stalin rejected him. The economic basis of a system is what determines if it is socialist, communist, capitalist, mixed, etc. not how it decided to adapt that base.

While it is true that, historically, socialist states generally confiscated the 'means of production" through military force, that is not a necessary element. It is the state owned 'means of production' that makes it socialist. Venezuela achieved this through voting in a socialist leader who then simply nationalized the 'means of production'.

 

[skepticalbip]

deleted duplicate

 

[PyramidHead]

In other words, state ownership of the means of production is only an incidental ingredient of socialism; the main one is that a revolution has occurred that replaces the ownership class with the working class as the dominant force in society. Only when the state is comprised of workers does state ownership of property equate to socialism.

You are using the Trotskyite interpretation of Marx. Trotsky was so radical that even Stalin rejected him. The economic basis of a system is what determines if it is socialist, communist, capitalist, mixed, etc. not how it decided to adapt that base.

The article literally quotes Marx:

What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

Not much about the government owning anything. Incidentally, Marx wrote very little about what a society that practice socialism or communism would look like, and actually defined the latter not as a system but as the struggle to achieve a break from capitalism. From The German Ideology:

Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.

Read Marx or stop pretending you know anything about Marxism

 

[PyramidHead]

And Trotsky's entire beef with Stalin was over whether (a) societies which had not yet achieved capitalism could be fertile ground for revolutionary socialism, and (b) whether "socialism in one country" as opposed to a worldwide (or "permanent") revolution would be necessary to finally demolish capitalism. Marx used the term "permanent revolution", but to mean something else--an ongoing class struggle that does not stop after the bourgeoisie has been toppled, but is continually worked out during the transitional period into communism. Neither of these have anything to do with the government running businesses as such

 

[Tammuz]

Denmark is Social democracy/republic.

Denmark is not a republic, it is a constitutional monarchy.

 

[PyramidHead]

To the topic of the thread, capitalism and communism/socialism are opposites in the sense that Richard Wolff invokes, when he says that socialism is capitalism's shadow. There are no capitalist societies without socialist movements, because wherever capitalism is established, there is a tendency that rises to ask if society can move beyond it to something different. The same was true of societies built around feudalism, slavery, and any other mode of production and distribution of resources. None are permanent; they rise, enjoy dominance, and eventually fall, to be replaced by another system. This will happen to capitalism someday too.

 

[Jokodo]

In other words, state ownership of the means of production is only an incidental ingredient of socialism; the main one is that a revolution has occurred that replaces the ownership class with the working class as the dominant force in society. Only when the state is comprised of workers does state ownership of property equate to socialism.

You are using the Trotskyite interpretation of Marx. Trotsky was so radical that even Stalin rejected him.

That's a very... idiosyncratic interpretation of history. Stalin accused Trotsky and his followers of being the capital's (and/or fascism's) fifth column, and wielded this accusation as a welcome excuse to get rid of opponents inside the party by accusing them of "Trotskyism" whatever their actual leanings and motives to oppose him may have been.

 

[Harry Bosch]

To the topic of the thread, capitalism and communism/socialism are opposites in the sense that Richard Wolff invokes, when he says that socialism is capitalism's shadow. There are no capitalist societies without socialist movements, because wherever capitalism is established, there is a tendency that rises to ask if society can move beyond it to something different. The same was true of societies built around feudalism, slavery, and any other mode of production and distribution of resources. None are permanent; they rise, enjoy dominance, and eventually fall, to be replaced by another system. This will happen to capitalism someday too.

True. All things change. However, why do you assume that capitalism has to be replaced with only socialism? If capitalism is replaced, I think it will be by a system that we can't even predict at this time.

 

[fromderinside]

Denmark is Social democracy/republic.

Denmark is not a republic, it is a constitutional monarchy.

Fuck! That means I'm related to the Monarch according to my late grandmother.

 

[Tammuz]

Denmark is Social democracy/republic.

Denmark is not a republic, it is a constitutional monarchy.

Fuck! That means I'm related to the Monarch according to my late grandmother.

Every single person on the planet is related to the Danish monarch.

 

[steve_bank]

The basic divide is the writings of Mark and others versus Smith on capitalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital

Das Kapital, also called Capital. A Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, pronounced [das kapiˈtaːl kʁɪˈtiːk deːɐ poˈliːtɪʃən økonomˈiː]; 1867–1883) by Karl Marx is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy, economics and politics.[1] Marx aimed to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production in contrast to classical political economists such as Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. While Marx did not live to publish the planned second and third parts, they were both completed from his notes and published after his death by his colleague Friedrich Engels. Das Kapital is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets.[1]

There has never been pure capitalism and communism to date.

We all know over here we have a corporate welfare state.

 

[PyramidHead]

The basic divide is the writings of Mark and others versus Smith on capitalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital

Das Kapital, also called Capital. A Critique of Political Economy (German: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie, pronounced [das kapiˈtaːl kʁɪˈtiːk deːɐ poˈliːtɪʃən økonomˈiː]; 1867–1883) by Karl Marx is a foundational theoretical text in materialist philosophy, economics and politics.[1] Marx aimed to reveal the economic patterns underpinning the capitalist mode of production in contrast to classical political economists such as Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. While Marx did not live to publish the planned second and third parts, they were both completed from his notes and published after his death by his colleague Friedrich Engels. Das Kapital is the most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth, and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. By reflecting upon the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the book touches upon such broad topics as the division of labour, productivity, and free markets.[1]

There has never been pure capitalism and communism to date.

We all know over here we have a corporate welfare state.

The difference is that Marx was a materialist. Rather than think about future societies being organized under a "pure" -ism one way or another, he analyzed the present state of things and constantly stressed the importance of taking the specific conditions of each scenario into account rather than pasting a one-size-fits-all system on top of everything. This is in contrast to historical idealism, which views the world not in terms of the real struggles of people who are made of physical matter, but as a clash of grand abstract -isms that takes place in a Platonic realm, whose closest representatives are world leaders and military generals.

 

[steve_bank]

Marx accurately analyzed the capitalist economics of the day. It is why he is considered the greatest social scientist.

Considering the conditions of the workers under a dictatorial authoritarian economic system he thought the world would spontaneously rise up. Did not happen.

I believe Leninism had the term The Vanguard. Lenin realized an abrupt change would be problematic,. The communist party would facilitate a transformation to communism.

I have heard it said that Marx could not have foreseen a 20tg century steel worker sending his kid to ballet school.

The basic dichotomy is a system based on profit and private ownership of business and a system that is essentially tribal. The system exists to provide the needs of the people. Capitalism exists for profit. The fact that it has raised standrds and provide a wide range of goods is a side effect.

It is a fact that our politicians do not seem to grasp. Capitalism exists to make a profit, not create jobs. Jons are a a side effect not a cause.

The idea that an unregulated free market is going to properly balance wages and living costs and provide high employment is a conservative fantasy. That is not the way capitalism works.

The argument which seems to be generally true is that a rising tide raises all boats,.

Way back in Econ 101 the prof asked 'What is the purpose of capitalism?'. I responded something like to provide the greatest number of goods at the lowest cot for the most people.

He pointed his finger at me and said sharply 'No ! The purpose of capitalism is to make a profit'.

It took years on the job for that to fully sink in.